The cost of going to college increases with every passing year. If you are like many parents, you probably have concerns about how to finance your child’s college education. You may wonder how college expenses are dealt with when parents are unmarried or divorced. Does Illinois require parents to help pay for college? Does the parent who pays child support automatically pay for university-related expenses? Whether your child is college-aged or you still have a few years before he or she heads off to university, it is important to know how Illinois law deals with college expenses.

Child Support for College Students in Illinois

College expenses are handled differently than typical child support. When the child is still a minor, it is presumed that the obligor pays child support. Regular child support typically ends when the child turns 18 and graduates from high school. Once the child is an adult, this presumption no longer exists. It is up to the parent seeking non-minor child support to show that non-minor support is appropriate. Per Illinois law, courts may require one or both parents to contribute to college expenses, but this requirement is not automatic.

Any parent will tell you that raising children can be quite expensive. Between housing, educational and extracurricular fees, groceries, healthcare, and other costs, child-related costs can be a large part of a parent’s monthly bills. Child support can be a considerable source of financial support for a divorced parent with the majority of the parenting time. If you are planning to divorce, you may be asking yourself, “How much child support does an Illinois parent receive after divorce?”

Current Method for Determining Child Support

Illinois has adopted the “Income Shares” model for child support. According to this model, both parents’ net incomes are used to determine a support payment amount that is reasonably affordable while also providing the recipient parent with the financial support he or she needs to pay for child-related costs. If parents each care for their child 146 overnights or more every year, the parents are engaged in a “shared parenting” situation according to Illinois law. Because each parent has the child a good portion of the time, the amount of child support that the recipient parent receives is reduced. In shared parenting situations, the more parenting time that an obligor parent has, the less he or she pays in support. If parents do not have the children for 146 nights or more each year, they are not in a shared parenting situation and the obligor’s amount of parenting time does not change his or her child support obligation.

Child support is intended to offset the costs of raising a child for the primary parent, which can ultimately improve the child's overall living conditions. Unfortunately, some paying parents do not seem to understand the value of their financial contribution. They dodge payments or stop making them altogether and leave the custodial parent with all the responsibility, which can cause unnecessary suffering for the child. Learn more about your options in such a situation, and discover how the assistance of a seasoned family law attorney can help to improve the outcome of your overdue child support case.

Avoid Taking Matters Into Your Own Hands

When a child is suffering unnecessarily, and the person who can help refuses to do so, parents receiving child support can become angry, frustrated, and distressed. These feelings can sometimes lead them to take matters into their own hands. Common actions involve showing up at a paying parent's home or place of employment, demanding payment, and withholding court-ordered parenting time.

Sometimes, divorce decrees do not include an explicit obligation for a parent to pay for a child's post-secondary education. Though divorce decrees can govern child support and alimony payments, some issues may be left undecided in a divorce for the parties to determine in the future. In Illinois a heavily litigated topic is the determination of who is required to pay for unallocated post secondary education expenses, and how much of the expense should be borne by parents.

Divorce Decrees and Post Secondary Expenses

If an obligation to pay expenses is explicitly contained in a divorce judgment, even when the amount to paid is left out, the non-petitioning party will typically be required to pay college expenses incurred pre-petition. When a divorce decree does not provide for a child's post-secondary expenses, this issue is often reserved by general language that states that the parents “shall contribute” in such a way that will be decided in the future. Such allocations are typically not decided at the time of divorce, because it is unclear what sort of education the child will pursue, where this education will take place, and how much it will cost. The best practice is to file a petition for expenses before the child's first year in school. However, these petitions can be filed anytime while the child is in school, and even after the child has graduated and incurred all of the expenses necessary for their post secondary education.